Retailers such as food markets vend upwards of thousands of items which are displayed on shelves and arranged in aisles. Such products, generally sold at small margin, must be displayed and be associated with signage intended to attract a customer and to differentiate similar products of differing brands or manufacturer from one another. Modern signage must not only passively inform consumers of the pricing, and other identification associated with a particular food product, but also have the ability to highlight those differentiating characteristics, such as ingredients, of two seemingly similar products, and do so in a way that captures a customer's attention.
In addition to signage being attractive, informative and stimulating, most food markets tend to purchase signage systems whose individual parts can be mixed and matched to minimize the need to maintain bloated signage inventories. In addition, if a retailer wishes to highlight the fact that a certain product was “organic” or “locally grown” or has some other attribute or characteristic which would encourage or stimulate purchase, supplemental tags, referred to here as “bullets,” are often employed to catch the eye of the consumer as he or she surveys the myriad of products on display. Also, product pricing is often times changed without modifying other informational features of the sign. A product, for example, can first be offered at $2.99 per unit and, to stimulate consumer interest, the price changed to $2.49 per unit. Making this change quickly and accurately with a small price library remains a challenge.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a merchandise display tag which overcomes the limitations of similar tags currently employed in the field.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a merchandise display tag which can readily accept and releasably secure supplemental product information in the form of a bullet thereto in a manner superior to similar signage of the prior art.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a merchandise display tag in which a portion of the primary pricing information can be changed readily while minimizing pricing errors and minimizing the size of the required pricing library characteristic of currently available signage.
These and further objects will be readily apparent when considering the following disclosure and appended claims.